Coffee Black and Blood Red
by Keydieh Hurst
Summary: Life goes on and the demons of our loves lost haunt us in places we can't escape. Like the ship we call our home. Or the inside of our minds.


Note: Sorry, not sorry. This is the product of my dark and twisted mind and a conversation about black coffee and open wounds and uniform colours. I blame rawkfemme and Helen!

Thank you timequaked and Helen, for reading this thing and letting me know it's not total shit.

I also made Helen beta his thing. So making it presentable is also on her! As usual I tainted her hard work by adding bits and pieces without checking back again...

* * *

The lift halts and the draft of the opening doors pulls me from my thoughts. I step out onto the bridge and the first thing I see is your empty chair. The hairs on the back of my neck instantly rise, making me shudder.

I can feel Tuvok's eyes following me and know his eyebrow is raised expectantly as he observes my usual path around the railing down the steps, halting a fraction of a second in front of your chair before my feet carry me on and I lower myself into my own.

The same procedure every day.

Every damn day.

Today is day 74.

I force my eyes to stay glued to the front screen instead of swaying to your seat expecting to suddenly see you sitting there, slightly leaning towards me, reading a report or instigating some witty banter.

I should ask for a report but my mouth goes dry and my throat constricts as I try to force the word out. I pull the collar of my turtleneck from my throat, the tightness of it suddenly threatening to choke me. I want to stand up and move, get away from this place as far as possible. But I'm paralyzed, unable and unwilling to leave, and pull myself out of the memories that overtake me.

I wrinkle my nose as the faint smell of coffee penetrates my consciousness and looking around I cannot find the source. The smell of fresh coffee seems to constantly linger in the air everywhere I turn. I close my eyes at the familiar beeping of consoles, the quiet rustle of clothes as crewmen go about their business around me.

If you were here right now, you would open the middle console and lean over, acting is if we were working on ship's business. You would beckon me to close the distance and ask in hushed tones if I was alright. I would smile and nod, because my burden is mine and should not wear your delicate shoulders down. Not that I would ever tell you that.

Your hand would casually brush against my arm, almost as if incidentally, drawing my attention, making sure, always making a connection. Always noticing. Always caring. You would know about my worries and burdens, would sense it in the way I carry myself or an unconscious gesture. You would talk to me about everything and nothing and time would fly by unnoticed, cups of coffee coming and going while your voice washes over me and soothes my anxious mind. Hours would go by and I wouldn't care, wouldn't notice because I would be too occupied with soaking up every infinitesimal moment of being with you.

The echo of your voice whirrs around my head, burning itself deeper into the furthest recesses of my mind and if I let it happen I can hear you whisper to me. My mind conjures an image of you, engrossed in your book as you read out loud. I can see myself looking up at you, studying the graceful line of your neck and your jaw, the steady movement of your lips and the recurring appearance of your tongue, sneaking out to wet your lips when you take a breath before the next passage. I can feel the steady rise of your stomach against the side of my head and the swirl of your fingers on my temples.

I close my eyes and allow myself to submerge into this fantasy, this memory that is a healing balm to my heart and soul. I allow myself to feel your fingers stray from my temples along the lines of my tattoo through my hair, tracing the outer rim of my ear and down my neck. I lean my head against the backrest of my seat and feel myself dozing off as I let the memory engulf me and transport me to that time and place. There's nowhere I would have rather been in that instant. And right now, trying to drone out the ship around me, your lap is the only place I want my head to be.

Instead, a noise yanks my head back to the present and I tear my eyes open. I move too fast and my gaze settles on Lieutenant Paris' back, drawn to the red and black of his uniform like a moth to the flame.

I stare at the colours of his uniform and I feel faint as my head swims with memories.

I can no longer distinguish between the black before me and the black in my mind. The bitter taste that your coffee used to leave on your lips becomes the bitterness that seeps into every cell of my body. I try to force the image back, the warmth of your skin against mine, your supple lips sweetly moving along my skin. Instead the command red I'm forced to stare at produces gurgling sounds and red splatters before my inner eye. I feel the sticky warmth of blood on my hands and all over the front of my uniform where it seeps in and sticks to my chest, where you collided with me, where I cradled your limp body against me, where I touched and pressured in a feeble attempt to stop the surging red gushes of life leaving you…

I swallow heavily against the acrid taste of bile that rises in my throat at the thought of everything that we were indistinguishably merging into one soured memory.

I hate Tom Paris.

Not for who he is, but for the uniform that he places in front of me every day. The colours that we are both burdened to wear day in and day out. I want to change his shift so I don't have to stare at those colours all day, every day.

I feel guilty for my own thoughts about him. He, who just like me, has to put on those colours every day. I wonder if he faces the same struggle I fear every day when I wake up, if he waits to put on his uniform until the last possible moment.

He shudders and I wonder if he can feel my stare. I wonder if it's your absence that causes the slump in his shoulders and the hanging of his head. Your absence that causes a roaring silence in the command center of your ship.

Every day.

74 days.

I tear my gaze away from Tom and stupidly seek comfort in looking over our shared console at your empty chair. My mind brings me back to the light twitching of your fingers against my over sensitized skin while you were fast asleep beside me. I feel the tingles your touch has always caused, I see the flutter of your eyelids just before you wake and the look in your eyes when you finally open them and I am the first thing you see upon waking. I want to look elsewhere and wallow in my misery, but you are everywhere. I can see you everywhere, feel you in everything.

I still see you cross your legs as you lean back in your chair. I feel the traces of your fingers sweeping over the pages of the books you used to read. I feel you in the surface of your Ready Room desk. Edged into the wooden parts is the essence of your being, the breath of your life captured in the small creases where your hands used to lie.

I hear your laughter, see your eyes, feel your hands on me, warm and soft even now, and I want to scream. I want to scream and yell and weep, and I want to look for you despite the knowledge that I will never again find you, will never again hold you in my arms, will never hear you tell me that we'll be fine.

But I'm tired and exhausted. My memory conjures these images of you whenever I have a moment to myself, whenever I close my eyes, whenever a faintly familiar smell, or view, or feeling grazes me in passing. My mind conjures you whenever I need the comfort and I feel like you're still here, somewhere around me.

And I miss you. I miss you so much it hurts. I miss you more than I can possibly express in words and I still find myself trying. I miss everything about you, everything that you were, everything we could have become.

I don't miss you because you were the most beautiful creature in my universe or because you were the most loving person I have ever encountered, nor because you were the most intelligent person I've known.

I miss your soul.

I miss the brightness in your eyes when I told you that I love you.

I miss the little things you did every single day with so much love and care, the millions of tiny details, the myriad of ways in which you were so generous and kind. I miss that little spark that made people fall in love with you.

I miss your soul and sometimes I wish I could touch it, your soul, your never-ending soul. You will never let me go. You, who let me be so free, so much myself and yet changed me so deeply, unwittingly, unconsciously.

I stare at your empty chair and it remind me that I need to officially appoint my first officer, that I need to move into your place and fill the space that you left behind.

But it's only day 74 and I need the emptiness you left behind. I need that void to block out my grief. I need the vacuum of your absence to fill it with memories and let your peace wash over me. I need the essence of everything that was you to keep me going on day 75 and every single day that follows.

I count the days, mentally crossing them off the long list of days ahead of me, wishing, hoping, longing for that one day when I can finally wear these colours with pride again, when I can live by the example you set and draw my strength from them. I hope against hope. I wish in vain. I pray to the spirits of my forefathers asking them for something, anything.

You would tell me not to ask for more than we were given, that it would be selfish to try and hold on to this feeling when it no longer appertains to me, that I should be thankful for the short time that I had it and you would tell me to keep and treasure the memory of that feeling.

And I do. Even if I wanted to forget, I couldn't. I could never forget you, or the deep, pure love that I feel for you, because that feeling was so much more, still is, than I could have ever expected, asked for, hoped for. I know that I will love and honor you, not until the end of my days, but beyond into an uncertain, unreachable future because I not only feel this love, deep in my bones, but because it has engulfed me, become me, is me in the deepest corners of my jarred being.

I'm thankful for everything you tried to give me, would have given me had we been granted more time, and for everything you did give me and for all the ways that you changed me.

You've been my soul, my life, my thoughts for so long and you'll be forever with me.

And I'll be with you.

Always.

I am brought out of my revery by someone shifting in their seat. I look around and my eyes land on Harry Kim. He looks pale and withdrawn. His shoulders are just as slumped as Tom's and there are dark circles under his eyes. He is not taking your absence well. I sigh heavily and from the corner of my eye I notice Tom sitting up a little straighter upon hearing me. They don't do well without you. We all don't do well without you, Kathryn.

I heave myself out of my seat and walk over to Harry. He startles when I stop at his station and lay my hand on his arm. When he turns towards me and lift his gaze to my face, I try to give him a sympathetic smile. I'm not entirely sure how successful I am, but I reach for his should and gesture for him to follow me.

I can't bring you back to them, but in a vain attempt to heal myself, I can try to ease the grief of those you left behind.

Turning the bridge over to Tuvok, I step into the turbolift with Harry.

I mentally brace myself for the _Aye, Captain_ and am thankful for small miracles when the doors close before I can hear his reply.


End file.
